


Ghosts

by SapphireSassenach



Category: Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-30
Updated: 2016-10-30
Packaged: 2018-08-27 23:32:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8421931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SapphireSassenach/pseuds/SapphireSassenach
Summary: Tumblr Prompt:  Jamie helping Bree through a nightmare of Bonnet





	

The first thing that Jamie became aware of when he roused from sleep was that the breeze from the open window in the cabin was blissfully cool. The tiny house that he had built for Claire had the tendency to grow warm with the extra bodies radiating heat in the warmer weather.

He felt Claire’s warmth beside him in bed, soft and wonderful. He reached out and gently patted her hip where her shift had ridden up a bit. And laughed gently as she grumbled and rolled over, already asleep again.

But there was now another warmth on his right side. Brianna. His lost and found daughter. His and Claire’s miracle. A child had traveled through the veil of time and then back to him again.

A child no more as she was carrying her own bairn now. His heart throbbed and his stomach dropped as he thought of how she had gotten with that child. A beast of a man who had taken her. He had never wanted so badly to kill someone. The person who had hurt his blessing from god. His pure daughter.

His knuckles ached to beat the blurred face of the man. The was never an urge so strong to kill. Not even Jack Randall. Jamie would go after the man who hurt his daughter above all else. It was only the knowing of her safe now under his roof that slowed his heart.

Jamie squinted in the darkness to see the outline of her as she slept on the pallet near their bed. The moonlight escaping that corner of the house. He smiled gently to himself and sent a quick prayer of thanks- as he did so often now- to god for her.

He was about to curl himself back around Claire when he heard a noise that must have been the thing to wake him in the first place. A whimper from the ground. And then a rustling of blankets as she tossed in her sleep. A nightmare then.

The bed frame creaked as he slowly got out from the covers and walked the few feet to Brianna. His heart clenched as he watcher her toss about, her red brows furrowed together as she dreamt of what must have been the worst moments of her life.

Slowly, he moved close to her, timidly as he knew from experience how it felt when someone touched him after he had been reliving his violation.

He murmured to her quietly in Gaelic as he brushed a lock of sweaty hair back from her forehead. A small part of his heart rejoicing at the small sign that she was indeed the child of his blood as he noticed how much heat she produced as she slept. Something he had done ever since he was a babe himself.

“A nighean. Come, wake now. Dinna be scared, I’m here.”

He placed a hand on her shoulder and shook her gently, trying to wake her slowly and to not start her.

Blue met blue as she snapped her eyes open, painfully aware and awake. Jamie’s heart squeezed again as he realized that that must have been the look Claire had seen every time he woke from a nightmare.

And his face must have looked as Claire’s did when she saw his look when he woke. The look that his daughter must be seeing on his face now. Concern. Pain. Understanding. And comfort. Always comfort.

“Da?” She spoke with a raspy voice while rubbing her eyes hard, hard enough to erase the vision from her mind.

“Aye, mo chuisle. Tis’ me,” he spoke softly into the night while still gently smoothing her messy hair back. A gesture he remembered his mother did to him when he was small and scared.

He placed a reassuring hand on her back and nudged her up into a sitting position. Her chest heaved as she tried to desperately take in air and her shoulders shook from the terror.

“Come. Let’s go outside. The fresh air will help ye,” he saw her eyes close briefly and then nodded to herself as she got up from the ground.

Jamie pulled out his kilt and quickly wrapped it around himself while Brianna grabbed the cloak he had brought her. It gave him pleasure to see her using something he had bought. Perhaps it was because he was never able to provide for any of his children. But now, by some miracle of time, he was allowed to care for his daughter.

Claire was still in the bed, tucked under the blankets. He wasn’t sure if she had woken again, but he suspected that she had.

Brianna opened the door and marched out into the sweet, cool air. He sighed as he watcher her shadow pace in the moonlight.

He moved to Claire’s side of the bed and kissed her forehead, as gently as he would a newborn babe. A flutter of whiskey greeted him as she opened her eyes slightly. She smiled a sad smile as she looked past him towards their distressed daughter.

“Go back to bed now, Sassenach. I’ll tend to her,” he brushed his nose softly against hers and then walked out to share the night with his blood.

 

 

“I can’t- I can’t sleep! Every time I close my eyes I see him and I can’t stand it,” she whispered into the quietness of the trees. They sat on a few rocks in front of the small stream a few hundred feet from the house.

She had wanted to walk. To busy her mind until the ghost of her violation was no longer with her. And he had simply followed silently behind her until she was ready to speak.

And now that she spoke, he didn’t have any answers. Or at least any answers he wanted to tell her.

“I ken, lass. I had the same almost every night for a long while and then they started to fade,” he said quietly as he wrapped his arm tight around her shoulders, trying so hard to be her anchor.

Claire was the only reason he had made past those terrible nights. Brianna had no one here, expect for that bastard Wakefield who hadn’t shown his face.

Jamie thought about the things he would do to that face if he ever did decide to grace them with his presence. She huffed, obviously not pleased to know hear that.

“What made them fade?”

He sighed and looked up at the visible stars, watching them shine down. The stars he had looked at so often when he thought of Claire while she was lost to him. “In truth, it was yer mother,” he said slowly, carefully.

She glanced up at him, watching as he was transported back to that abbey where he had almost given up on his life.

“She held me to her breast and cherished me, though I didna deserve it at the time,” he shook his head slightly, “At the time, she was the only thing I could hold onto. The only thing I ken I could believe in.”

Her eyes flickered away and looked deep into the forest in front of her as her eyebrows knitted together. He knew she was thinking of her lad and it pained him a little. As much as he wanted the blasted man to come for her, he also wanted to keep her as his for just a little while longer.

“And if I don’t have that? What you and mama have?”

The tone of her voice was harsh, bitter. But he knew it to be a mask, a mask he had worn many a time before.

“You will have it, Brianna,” his words loud and confident as he gripped her tighter to him. “I ken it.”

He only saw a slight glimmer on her cheek before she collapsed into his chest with muffled sobs. And all he could do was hold her.

“If there was any way I could bear this pain for ye, I would,” he spoke fiercely into her hair while stroking her back in a soothing manner. “I would suffer a thousands deaths to spare ye from it, but I canna do it.”

Her cries grew harder as she clutched him and he desperately whished with all his being and soul that he could cut the pain from her and heal her.

“But it will fade and then ye will ken you can survive anything.”

He placed his head atop hers and kissed the crown where the cowlick he had as well stood up. “But just know now that your mother and I love ye more than life and will make sure you are well taken care of.”

She sniffled and reached up to brush his cheek. The pain and wetness in her eyes cut him to the core, but her words made him feel just the slightest bit of comfort in the mist of the helplessness.

“I love you, too, Da.”


End file.
